Geodesign: Multi-agency Scenario Planning

Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) decisions are complex.
Urban landscapes are characterised by interrelated social, environmental,
economic and infrastructural subsystems that change over time. And so collaborative
frameworks like Geodesign are necessary to support SUD decision-making, which
requires the alignment of diverse interests held by stakeholders from each
subsystem, and due consideration for information uncertainty about how these
systems function and evolve.

CFRC organised the
first Geodesign workshop to be held in Australia. Representatives
across state and local government, infrastructure agencies, industry, and
academia were brought together to collaborate on a strategic plan for Sydney’s
South East Catchment 2050.

While the workshop’s outcomes will remain unendorsed as it
was based on hypothetical development scenarios, the exercise demonstrated
Geodesign’s utility as a mediative framework for inter-agency learning and
collaboration over a common study area:

Workshop Setup

Forty representatives from local government, state agencies,
industry and academia were invited to participate in an intensive two-day
workshop. The participants were divided into six teams representing stakeholder
groups with different strategic aspirations for the study area. The workshop
objective was for the teams to produce a consensus design for the study area at
the end of the second day.

Using a browser-based mapping platform, participants drew
the location and extent of specific development projects that would be part of
their group’s vision of the study area. Participants also assigned costs and
timeframes to each project they proposed.

Teams discuss the projects they want to
include in the design

Results

The teams then entered into negotiation rounds to deliberate
on which projects should be included. Team representatives explained their
group’s interests in each project, and considered the project timing and costs
in their decision. With the negotiation process facilitated by the mapping
platform, the teams were able to quickly identify specific areas where they
share common goals with other groups, and where there were conflicting
interests. In a short amount of time, the team discussions revealed
opportunities for collaboration as well as needs for compromise.

Team representatives discussing their
shared interest over a specific location

From over 400 different project proposals and versions, the
participants were able to agree on the projects that would be included in their
consensus design. Project timelines were also adjusted to ensure that their
funding and implementation schedules were coordinated.

Survey feedback revealed that while some participants felt
that the final consensus design diverged greatly from their team’s vision for
the study area, that they understood the series of decisions and agreements
that led to the consensus design.